Pramgaanda-one accustomed to lend money on exhorbitant interest.

Or (the real word is) Pramadaka-he who believes in the existence of this world only and not of any other.......

Nirukta VI. 32.

Sâyana follows the Nirukta in his commentary on the Rik "O Indra! in the Kîkatas (regions where dwell the Non-Aryans or people who doubt in the efficacy of such acts as sacrifices, gifts, or offerings of ghee in fire and do not believe in them, rather who say Eat and drink, only this world exists, not another,' the unbelievers). What do the cows do for thee? (They do nothing to serve thee). They do not give milk for mixture with Soma juice. used in Pravargya part of the sacrifice, become heated with their milk..........

Nor does the pot known as Mabavira

helpful in any Vedic Not only that. Bring

Therefore as these cows are not performance do thou bring them to us. us also the wealth of Pramaganda. (The money by becoming double or so will come back to me-he who with this intention gives money to others is called Maganda, i. e. one who lives upon increase (vṛiddhi). His descendants are called Pramaganda, people who are extremely usurious. O Maghavan! bring to our service (the wealth of) those that are low-born". Sáyana. Wilson says:-" Kikața is usually identified with South Behar ".1 Weber says:-"In the Rik Samhita, where the Kikațas the ancient home of the people of Magadha and their King Pramaganda are mentioned as hostile, we have probably to think of the aborigines of the country ........

It seems not impossible that the native inhabitants, being particularly vigorous, retained more influence in Magadha than elsewhere even after the country had been Brahmanised. ............................. and that is how we have to account for the special sympathy and success which Buddhism met with in Magadha.

I have not been able to find out why Weber calls Pramaganda

1 Quoted by R. C. Dutt in his Bengali translation of Rigveda Sanhits. • Weber's Indian Literature (Translation), page 79.

the king of Kîkata. the non-Aryan inhabitants of a country (probably Kosala or Oudh) usually identified with South Bihar. The meaning is that the cows bestowed by Indra are unprofitable when in the possession of men who do not worship the Aryan Gods. Pramaganda : the prince of the Kikațas; according to Sâyaṇa the word means the son of the usurer. ""

Griffith says:-"The Kikaṭas :

None of the authorities refers to Nirukta. The authority of Yâska is greater than that of Sâyaṇa and in explaining the word Pramaganda we cannot overlook the fact that Yâska does not mention any king of Magadha.

Then as to the identity of Kîkata, Nirukta is conclusive. Whether we take Pramaganda as the prince of Kîkața, or as the people or a section of the people of that province, there cannot be any doubt that the word is inseparably connected with Kíkaṭa The Nirukta tells us Pramaganda is Pra+Maganda, the basic word being Maganda. The similarity between Maganda and Magadha is so great that it will be no violent assumption to say that a tract of the country that had been inhabited by usurious money-len lers or Magandas in Vedic times came to be known as Magadha in the Mahabharata period.

We can also easily imagine that a large part of Shahabad and Gaya districts and a portion of Bihar Subdivision were covered over with forests even as they now are and there were immense pasture lands over which numberless cattle used to graze. Local tradition places the hermitage of Viśvâmitra near about Buxar and the Rik above quoted gives a strong verification of that tradition. It is quite natural for the descendants of Visvamitra to cast a wistful eye upon the numberless cattle of the Kìkatas, the original dwellers of Magadha, and to wish for their possession for the performance of Vedic sacrifices.

Who could the Kîkatas be who gave their name to the land? Are they the ancestors of the Goalas of the present day, who owned cattle and did not co.ne under the Brahmanical influence? Does this fact account for the large population of Goalas in

the province ? In this connection, it is interesting to note the lingering custom amongst the Goalas of the province to kill pigs on the day after Dewali. This must be the remnant of a non-Aryau custom. The Dewali is the new moon night of the month of Kârtika.

The Goddess Kali is worshipped on this night.

The next day is sacred to the cows in Bihar, when the Godanr or Gaidanr festival is observed. On this day the Dosada brings his pigs and the Goala his cows and buffaloes and the pigs are made to be killed by the cows and buffaloes. The tradition is that in former days the Goalas used to partake of the pig but now, of course, the pig is taken away by the Dosads. It may fairly be presumed that the Goalas and the Dosads were the original dwellers of South Bihar and they formed friendly tribes, one tending the cattle and the other tending the pigs and there was an annual festival when the cows and buffaloes of one tribe were pitched against the pigs of another tribe, then there was a general feast over the slaughtered pigs which was partaken of by both the tribes, or there might be separate feasts of the two tribes.

There is another significant fact. The Goraya is the deity proper of the Dosadas. In towns and villages in South Bihar, wherever there is a Devisthana there is generally the deity of Goraya also. The Devi or Goddess is generally installed inside a hut and the image is made of mud while Goraya is placed outside the hut and is generally made of stones. While the Devi is worshipped with milk and offerings burnt in ghee, Goraya is worshipped in addition with wine. I have said above, Goraya is the deity proper of the Dosadas. But the Goalas also make vow to that deity specially when cows fall ill. This shows a past intimacy between the Goālas and the Dosadas. When I speak of Goālas, I do not certainly include in the list the Kanaujia Goālas, who form a separate class and among whom the Sagai form of marriage does not prevail. They evidently migrated from Kanauj and have a separate history of their own, Jam doubtful about the Ghoshi sect too, as there is no Sagai

form of marriage in this sect. My remarks apply to the Krishnaut, Majhrautia and Goria sects, which abound in the Patna Division. The Krishnauts, I believe, form the largest proportion of the Goalas in the Province. There is one sect of Goalas, known as Jatha, rare in the Patna Division, inhabiting only some parts of Gaya. But I am told the sect is to be found mostly in the Chota Nagpur Division. I am also told that the Jatha Goalas call themselves Tiket as well. This is only a bare information and it requires verification. If the information be true Tikat is a very near approach to Kikata. The Kikatas and the Magandas, whoever they might be, must not be identified in any way with the aboriginal hill tribes of Bihar. Even in the Vedic times the former were a wealthy people lending money to others and having some form of civilization of their own. They did not believe in the Vedic Gods and they did not take any part in Vedic sacrifices. They perhaps kept themselves aloof from the Brahmanas. But it cannot be said that they had no religion as Yaska seems to indicate. Possibly Goraya and it may be even the Goddess occupied some place in their religion. It may be that the Ghora or Aghora aspect of Śiva or Mahadeva is a development of Goraya and an attempt was made here as elsewhere to assimilate a non-Aryan deity. It may also be that the Dosadas are called Goraits as they are followers of Goraya, just as the Lingayats ar alled after Linga in the South. The word Goraya may have something to do with gorena or agorena, to watch, as the Gorayats are perhaps watchmen since their early existence, and Gorava in that case may be a God of watch in the first instance and a God of protection generally in later development. But I must not pursue the subject further.

See Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index, 1, p. 159, for reference to opinions of European schools on the KIKÁTAS.

III.-On a Muhammadan Folk-Tale of the

Hero and the Deity Type.

By Sarat Chandra Mitra, M.A., B.L.

In my paper on " A Folk tale of a New Type from North Bihar and its Variants," I have published three Hindu folktales of a new type which I have named "The Hero and the Deity Type" and fixed the story-radical thereof as follows:1. A hero goes to a deity to beg a boon.

2. On the way, he meets with several suffering persons and beasts, and a tree, all of whom importune him to enquire from the deity the causes and the remedies of their respective troubles.

3. The hero obtains his own boon and learns from the deity the causes and the remedies of their respective troubles.

4. He communicates the same to them, all of whom adopt the remedies and are, at once, relieved of their troubles.

Since the publication of the aforementioned article, I have come across a Muhammadan folk-tale of a type which is similar to the aforesaid one in all respects except in its finale, which is quite different. It appears to have been recently collected and translated into English. It has been named by its collector as "The Man Who Went to Wake His Luck. "+ The gist of this aberrant form of the folk-tale of the Hero and the Deity Type is as follows :

very

Once upon a time, there were two brothers one of whom was rich and the other very poor. Going to the mountains on one occasion, the latter found that his brother's herds of horses were being grazed by a man with a black felt coat on. When

*Vide J. B. O. R. 8, September 1917, pp. 378-405.

+It was narrated to Mr. D. L. R. Lorimer by a Bakhtiari named Mulla Ilahi, translated into English and published by the former in Indian Ink for Xmas 1917 (Printed at No. 1, Garstin's Place, Calcutta, 1917), pages 10-11.